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Here we Go Rates going to 4 - 4 1/2% now with Fed. decision.

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Fed said it will buy up to $300 billion in long-term Treasury securities over the next six months.

If so could help the economy because many kinds of debt -- from mortgages to corporate bonds -- are linked to Treasury rates. Fed purchases would boost Treasury prices and drive down their rates. That would ripple through and lower rates on other kinds of debt.

At the same time, the Fed left a key short-term bank lending rate at a record low of between zero and 0.25 percent. Economists predict the Fed will hold the rate in that zone for the rest of this year and for most -- if not all -- of next year.

The last time the Fed set out to influence long-term interest rates was during the 1960s with Operation Twist, conceived by the Kennedy administration.